Wensleydale

Amongst the gently rolling hillsides of
Yorkshire lies one of the most unusual natural features on the planet - the famous cheese
caverns of Wensleydale.

This labyrinthine network of caves and subterranean
passageways is a mystifyingly popular attraction with local visitors - most probably
because there's precious little else of interest in the area. Their fame, like their
cheese, has spread far and wide, and people who find themselves with nothing better to do
will come from as far away as, ooh, Halifax to visit them.

Fortuitously, at the time
of my visit the caverns were closed to the public for their annual hosing down. This
afforded me the rare opportunity of a personal guided tour by the attraction's press
officer, Ms. Sharon Applewood. Lucky me.

A cheesy simile

The
approach to the caverns is best described as 'underwhelming'. A narrow gorge slices
through the hillside like a... and at this point I'm tempted to say 'like a knife through
cheddar' but I shall resist the temptation to plump for a cheesy simile.

A dusty,
grey, shale-strewn pathway leads to the tunnel entrance itself - a dark and uninviting
fissure, made ever so slightly more conspicuous by the addition of a cluster of sternly
worded safety notices, brutal iron turnstiles and a kiosk where you can buy appropriately-themed key rings, baseball caps and 'cheese on a stick'.

Nevertheless, if the view fails to stop you in your tracks,
the smell certainly won't. The pungent aroma that wafts from the tunnel mouth is
comparable to the foul guff of some minor demon the morning after a staff curry night in
Hades. This satanic whiff is funnelled and enhanced by the topography of the little
valley and strikes you with its full force, like a concentrated beam of stink.

I
feel physically sick, my stomach churns and my head begins to spin - and in my brief
moment of delirium I reflect that if ever it was possible to harness the full power of
cheese we would have a weapon of the most devastating potential. Thankfully, there
are some forces of nature that simply cannot be tamed.

Cheesy
Mum! Cheesy Mum!

Just as I begin to feel confident that I can master my
feelings of nausea, I become aware of a secondary source of smell. This turns out to
be Ms. Applewood herself, a large, bloated, ruddy faced woman, not dissimilar to one of
those gaudily decorated bouncy castles that you can hire out for kids parties. She
approaches me with a cheery wave, and the kind of breezy "Hullo!" of someone who
has witnessed my ghastly pallor many times before, and doesn't give a flying toss.

We exchange the usual checklist of polite greetings, and she
is not slow to infer my olfactory discomfort from the way that my nose appears to be
curling up and attempting to retreat into my skull.

"I'm quite used to the
smell by now," she tells me, with the kind of chirpy smugness that makes me
want to smash her face off. "After working in the caverns for over eight years,
I really don't notice it anymore. Of course, when I first came here, it was
terrible, especially for my family. I would go home reeking of cheese. My
kids' classmates used to taunt them at school. They would gather round in the
playground and shout 'Cheesy Mum! Cheesy Mum!'. It came to be quite a popular
chant, so the teachers told me. They even had it printed on T-shirts - the whole
thing was really quite organised. Shall we go in?"

Ominously black and disquietingly dank

The ease with which she slips this final question into her
patter leaves me in no doubt that it is rhetorical. I glance cautiously at the cave
mouth - ominously black and disquietingly dank - but I decide that we may as well get it
over with.

Ms. Applewood seems to be of a similar opinion. She takes my arm
and leads me towards the entrance. As we draw closer I feel my eyes start to water,
and a strange stinging sensation troubles the back of my throat. Resisting a
powerful urge to choke, I remind myself that I am here in a journalistic capacity and in a
croaking voice I ask my guide if her family have now come to terms with the problem.

"The smell? Oh, they're fine about it now," she explains, with scant regard for my obvious distress. "At least, I think
they are - my husband left me six years ago, and the kids have been taken into care, but I
get the occasional Christmas card from them, which is nice. Then shortly after that
the dog ran off, but I never felt he was really settled with us, anyway.

"No, the
only real companionship I've had these past few years has been Crackers, my pet
budgerigar. I used to love the way that he would repeatedly throw himself at the
bars of his cage, desperately trying to escape. He never managed it but, by heck, he
didn't half have a good go. Of course, even he's gone now. Sad really... You
wouldn't have thought a budgerigar would be capable of committing suicide, would
you?"

The
appalling stench is almost biblical

She continues to gabble at length about some of her other
pets, but aside from the occasional pang of empathy with her troubled menagerie, I fail to
pay much heed.

I'm much too concerned about entering the caves, and as we reach the
tunnel mouth I instinctively pause. Ms. Applewood warns me that it can be quite
treacherous, and advises me to watch my footing. Reluctantly, I step inside, and
immediately I can feel myself starting to panic.

It's dark, it's damp and the
appalling stench is almost biblical. Impulsively, I try to pull away but Ms.
Applewood has hold of my wrist in an iron grip. "Just stay close to me and
everything will be all right," she says, in a manner that is supposed to be
reassuring but comes across as nothing less than intensely irritating.

Still, I remind myself that I am a professional, of sorts,
and steel myself to continue. Within moments my eyes grow familiar with the gloom,
and I get my bearings by focussing on a string of spotlights. My stomach is still
turning like a washing machine going through its spin cycle. I try to control my
breathing and it gradually settles down to the kind of gentle sloshing motion more
suitable for woollens and delicates. At last I feel able to continue.

"Yes, it gets a lot of people like that," Ms.
Applewood says. "Breathtaking, isn't it?"

My sense of smell has been eroded

I do not condescend to reply, feeling that refraining from
punching this woman in the throat is as polite a response as I can presently muster. I
note, however, that I am becoming accustomed to the reek - either that, or my sense of
smell has been eroded entirely.

In fact, I am finally calm enough to take notice of
my surroundings - not that there is a great deal to notice. We are crouching
uncomfortably in a low-roofed passageway, which would appear to stretch for some
considerable distance. The rock is damp, slightly greasy and extremely
treacherous.

The actual caverns themselves, Ms. Applewood explains, lie deep within
the hillside. Nevertheless, the present owners have gone to some trouble to make the
troublesome tramp into the bowels of the Earth just a little bit more interesting.
Alcoves have been hacked into the walls, at intervals along the passageway, to accommodate
various 'interactive displays'. I know that they are interactive, because there is a
sign on the wall telling me so.

The first one we come to is a large, weakly illuminated and
grossly simplified cross-section of the landscape. This, I am informed by the
cracked, water stained sign above it, is 'AN ILLUSTRATION OF PREHISTORIC CHEESE
FORMATION'. Before it is a cheap plastic console offering me half a dozen cheap
plastic buttons to press. I press one. It yields with an unpleasant squeak
that sets my teeth on edge - but apart from that, nothing happens.

I press another;
again, nothing happens. I stab at two or three more with the same result, then use the
flat of my hand to press them all at once. At this point I notice a tiny red light
flickering feebly in the top left corner of the display. Hmm, if this is the level
of interactivity the attraction can offer, I inwardly reflect, then it's a wonder that
anyone ever wants to leave.

Deep pit Double Gloucester mining

As we proceed, further displays enlighten me as to the
'fasinating history of the caverns' (sic). I learn that they were routinely
mined for cheeses such as Stilton, Sage Derby and Cheshire from the year 1350 right up to
the end of the end of the eighteenth century.

This all came to an end with the
introduction of more economic deep pit Double Gloucester mining, which was able to produce
ten times the yield. Or maybe it was twenty times? There are all sorts of
facts and figures to which, in my excitement and awe, I completely fail to pay any
attention whatsoever.

I read on to discover that even the Double Gloucester industry
fell into decline because the number of impurities in naturally occurring British cheeses
make it unsuitable for modern processing methods. Apparently, most of the world's
cheese now comes from Scandinavia, which sits on rich seams of Havarti and Danish Blue
that were deposited there during the last ice age.

This information is imparted in
sombre and tragic tones, and I really might have been quite moved had I been in the mood
to give a toss.

Cheesy
gasses that bubble up from the cave floor

We move on to the next display, boldly entitled 'THE SECOND
GOLDEN AGE'. This would seem to imply that there has been a 'First Golden Age', of
which I have seen precious little evidence.

Anyhow, this particular golden age
refers to the Victorian era, when the caverns became popular with credulous middle-class
families who believed that the heady natural vapours were a powerful restorative.
These ailing and fragile examples of polite society came here in their droves to take
advantage of the cheesy gasses that bubble up from deep fissures in the cave floor.

There is, inevitably, very little evidence to support the notion that the caverns have any
special healing properties. Quite the reverse, in fact, if my own experience of the
place is anything to go by, for I am feeling increasingly unwell.

Perhaps the idea
was that after wandering around these treacherous and pungent subterranean passageways,
the average Victorian gent would feel greatly invigorated by the prospect of returning to
the smoke and the grime of the city.

Something in the region of four pounds fifty

We press on. Ms. Applewood is keen for me to see the
final display - an animatronic tableau which, I'm told, cost the attraction's owners a
considerable amount of money. By 'considerable amount' I presume she means something
in the region of four pounds fifty - and even assuming they were prepared to lavish such
an extravagant sum, I would be lying if I said they'd got their money's worth.

The
display is is not impressive, and Ms. Applewood's enthusiasm, genuine though it
undoubtedly is, is not nearly infectious enough. It is meant to depict a family
sheltering from an air raid during World War II. During the conflict the area came
under heavy bombardment from the Luftwaffe, who sought to disrupt the vital
cheese supplies that were so essential to the war effort. The locals would seek
shelter from the attacks in the deepest reaches of the caverns, but sadly they were often
in just as much danger down here as on the surface, running the constant risk of
succumbing to deadly Stilton gas, or being crushed to death beneath one of the frequent
falls of Red Leicester. Very few emerged unscathed from their ordeal, and those who
did found themselves unable to adapt to a normal, cheese-free environment.

It must have been hell back then. After all, it's not
exactly pleasant now. The thought of those terrified people, alone in the darkness,
frightened and cut off from the outside world, is truly horrific. In these dark,
claustrophobic tunnels you can almost hear the final echoes of their last, rasping, panic
stricken gasps for air. The notion of families still huddled tightly together in the
shadows is irresistible. It's as if these caverns will be forever haunted by their
tortured souls. And I'm sorry, but a display consisting of four mechanical
figurines dressed in gas masks, occasionally tilting their heads or spasmodically jerking
their shoulders, simply doesn't do it justice.

All the
cheeses of the rainbow

But all this is simply the prelude to the main event.
I'm just hoping that it's going to be worth it. Ahead of us I can see a hazy yellow
glow, becoming brighter as we approach. The smell, too, is growing stronger, and I
find myself struggling to breathe.

Presently we emerge into a broad, roughly
triangular cavern, almost like a flattened funnel. The walls are mottled in hues of
orange, and yellow, and red, and shot through with rich veins of Mild Cheddar, Windsor
Red, Lancashire and many, many others. All the cheeses of the rainbow. It's
strikingly intense, awe inspiring, and at the same time both frightening and deeply
unsettling. I can feel the panic once more beginning to invade my conscious
thoughts, and my chest heaves as I fight for breath.

My speech slurred, my mind clouded, I try to tell Ms.
Applewood that I must turn back, but my words emerge as a babble of nonsense and the
stupid woman drags me onwards, towards the far extremity of the chamber, where a mammoth
overhang of Red Leicester conceals another short passageway.

This leads us to a
narrow shelf of Single Gloucester, brittle and crumbling. Looking down, at the foot
of a sheer cliff face, at least a hundred feet below us, I can see distant spotlights
playing over a fast flowing stream of cream cheese. Ms. Applewood is talking to
me. At least, I think Ms. Applewood is talking to me. It's hard to
distinguish her voice from all the others in my head. She seems to be banging on
about some kind of problem with mice, but by now I feel quite dizzy and am unable to
concentrate on her words.

Twisted and taut

We inch slowly along the ledge, probing the ground
carefully with each step, until we reach a rope bridge, the lines twisted and taut, the
planking jagged and uneven. It stretches out across the chasm and disappears into
the darkness.

Ms. Applewood urges me on, and as I set foot on the first board I
realise that this shaky, shabby construction has been fabricated from nothing more
substantial than cheese strings, cocktail sticks and cream crackers. I come to an
abrupt halt, but a sharp push in the small of my back sends me staggering out into the
middle of the void.

And there I am, suspended in mid air on an unlikely
assortment of party snacks, swaying unnervingly, and acutely aware of the constant threat
of being pitched headlong into the rushing yellow torrent below. There is pitch
blackness ahead of me. There is a mad woman with the cheese fixation behind me.
My life hangs in the balance.

So I press on into the gloom, praying with each step that the
next time my foot falls it will be on firm ground. The darkness is complete.
The constant, hoarse rasp of Ms. Applewood is ever present at my back. Then finally
I reach the other side, and with great relief I press myself against a refreshingly cold
and reassuringly solid slab of cheddar.

But Ms. Applewood will allow me no time to
rest. She grabs my sleeve and drags me through a low arch, and I am startled - no,
perplexed - to find myself in a vast, illuminated chamber; a huge cathedral of
cheese. Its twisted, grotesque walls are dappled and streaked with a terrifying
palette of colour. Massive stalactites of Caerphilly hang down like huge, misshapen
chandeliers, and the floor is strewn with boulders of Wensleydale, Cornish Yarg and Dorset
Blue Vinny.

A giant Dairylea triangle

It's too much. It's all just too much.

I turn to Ms. Applewood and am alarmed to find that she has
morphed into a giant Dairylea triangle, with a ball of Edam for a head and cocktail sticks
for arms. Even more worrying, I myself would appear to be a jar of Branston pickle.
Well, this is no place for a jar of pickle! I'm trapped here! Trapped with
this cheese woman: anything could happen! I must get out! Fearing that my top
has become loose, I run screaming from the cave, trip over a stray chunk of pineapple and
crash to the floor.

The next thing I'm aware of is being carried out into the open on a stretcher
and loaded into the back of an ambulance. The medic reassures me that I'm just
suffering from a few Cheddar abrasions, and a small Gruyere wound to the shoulder.
Everything's kind of fuzzy and comfy and warm, and I really feel quite relaxed and
almost... well... happy.

Apparently, so the medic tells me, Gruyere can fester if
left untreated, so they're taking me into hospital for some shots. But it's nothing
to worry about, he says. I'm not worried in the slightest. Through the back
windows of the ambulance I can see the Wensleydale Cheese Caverns slipping slowly into the
distance and, as far as I'm concerned, things really couldn't be better.